Ships and a new combat mechanic

Below you will find my ideas for a few new ships as well as an expansion of the combat mechanics of the game. As it sits now all ships fire at the same time then damage is assigned and that's the end of combat. Combat in space would be a lot more complex with different ships having different weapons, weapon ranges, and ship speeds.

So a combat mechanic would have to evolve to handle all these aspects. More in that later. Now on to the ships.

Fighter:

Hull strength: 10

Shield strength: 8

Damage: 9

Speed: 10

Range: 3

Fire rate 1

Corsair(1)

Hull strength: 20

Shield strength: 10

Damage: 7

Speed: 10

Range: 3

Fire rate 1

Frigate

Hull strength: 60

Shield strength:30

Damage: 22

Speed 7

Range 6

Fire rate 2

Cruiser

Hull strength 100

Shield strength: 40

Damage 35

Speed 5

Range 6

Fire rate 2

Battleship

Hull strength 150

Shield strength 80

Damage 50

Speed 4

Range 7

Fire rate 3

(1) Corsair is defense only and not capable of travel between stars

Most of above numbers are arbitrary they just serve as a rough draft for the new combat mechanic I'm about to unveil to you. Turn based combat at range.

A battlefield would be a roughly 30 units across so if to fighters were to square off the combat report would read like this:

Round one

Fighter A advances 10 no units in range(3)

Fighter B advances 10 no units in range(3)

End of round one

Round two

Fighter A advances 10 units.

Fighter B advances 10 units.

Fighter A fires(9)at Fighter B shields(8) Hull(10) result S 0 hull 9

Fighter B fires(9)at Fighter A shields(8) Hull(10) result S 0 hull 9

End of round two

Round three

Fighter A fires (9) at fighter B Hull(9) result hull (0)

Fighter B fires (9) at fighter A Hull(9) result hull (0)

End of round three

Both fighters destroyed.

Complicated? Yes, but if not a single battleship could be brought down by a swarm of fighters on round one just by having a high enough attack combined in the fighters which would defeat the point of spending the resources on a battleship.

And to get bigger ships a player would have go have a larger ship yard and research the technology to build the ships.

If this was to be implanted and I think it would be awesome. It would also be a good idea to be able to link your fleets together so you could form battle lines that werent seperated by hours of travel time and would arrive at their target all at the same time.

Carries 1000 fighters max cap (Maybe have to be upgraded for the max cap and the ability to carry corsairs)Fast and Durable, but lessened combat ability as an idividual ship relying on it's fighters for supportCan carry Corsairs, at a slightly lessened capacity at 700 max cap as corsairs are a larger ship than fighters and only so much space to go around.Expensive to move yet economical when it comes to moving fighters of the same number, and the ability to transfer corsairs between stars.

- corsair's as a defense ship should have higher shields, but lower attack. Costs as 3x as much as a fighter because you know shields. But can be massed in matter of hours just like fighters. **can travel with fleet**

It would take 3 fighters to destroy 1 corsair. Since corsair lack offense capabilities it would take 2 corsair's to destroy 1 fighter.

- Frigates ... no let's just not add them... too many numbers to crunch. Trying to make it simple...

- cruiser's will form the back bone of a fleet. Due to medium size it can hold more guns and defense capabilities. Its role is to punch though the enemy shields. Takes a several hours to produce 1 (that's right, start colonizing and build them shipyards if u want to mass produce).

a single cruiser can take out 1000 fighters. But if corsair's are present then the cruiser must break through them first before it can tough. For example vs. 500 corsair's ( equalling 5000 def and 15000 shields) a single cruiser would shoot first because of range and would be able to destroy 100 of them before being overran by the rest.

That would be round 1 in battle calculations until one side loses.

- Battleship will be your empires most valuable ship. Deadly, many long range guns. Due to enormous size it takes days to build just one. Because of it's range it's purpose is to soften the enemy front to allow fighters, and cruisers to move in. First to strike, last to be attacked.

So sending a single battleship would not cause much fear as it can be over ran. So fleet management would be important. Fighters and corsair can be a deciding factor in battles.

Other ideas to improve game:

- semi active computer AI's natives (Ai races could be made for this). They can build, colonize, expand, attack just like human players, but arent as aggressive as human players. At least this would give my radar some use.... and options to attack something until a human player comes along.

- allow alliances to form peace treaties (5, 15, or 30 days to renew) with one another, so that they can support one another during war without friendly fire. Can also declare war officially.

- alliance battle reports. Allows members to see who is attacking who. No reports generated from attacking/defending natives.

- player kill count/losses tracker.

- auto manage system option. When empire becomes to big to manage selecting this option for a star system will allow the computer to decide what do. Options could be to auto build/upgade, or constantly build a specific type of ship. Player cannot select how many ships to build but instead planets will build a random number of ships depending on ship class and construction time . Player can also set destination markers to auto move ships to other star systems owned (travel cost will still apply, and you will see your funds drop (ship travel cost) and raise (taxes) from time to time. No auto attacking options avaliable.

- allow user friendly star system management by creating regions. Players can create regions in their empire from the star map. From the colony tab players can view and name regions. Instead of viewing your colony by displaying every planet; a player can select a region and the game will auto move the map to that area.